The Dichotomy of Interrogation: Viet Cong POWs and U.S. Code of Conduct Training Press Release Photos, 1963-67

Vietnam War Interrogation

Photograph

Vietnam War captivity and Code of Conduct press photograph archive, 1963 to 1967, documenting how American military joined two sides of the same problem: the questioning of suspected Viet Cong prisoners in South Vietnam and the training of U.S. soldiers to resist Communist interrogation if captured. The Korean training images trace to the post Korean War Code of Conduct regime created after American POWs had faced coercion, indoctrination, and propaganda use in North Korean and Chinese captivity. The Vietnam images date from June, August, and September 1967, during the year after the major U.S. troop buildup made prisoner handling, tactical intelligence, and battlefield screening daily features of American and South Vietnamese operations.

Photo archive of five silver gelatin press photographs, each 8 x 10 inches, 1963 to 1967. The photographs show three Vietnam War prisoner scenes and two U.S. Army Code of Conduct training scenes. One Associated Press wirephoto dated June 23, 1967, captioned "Interrogation," shows South Vietnamese Marines and a U.S. Marine questioning a Vietnamese villager suspected of being a Viet Cong terrorist after two Marines were killed in a firefight northeast of Saigon. Another, dated August 5, 1967, captioned "Questioning a villager," shows South Vietnamese paramilitary soldiers questioning a man suspected of being a Viet Cong soldier after villagers were rounded up following a firefight southwest of Saigon. A September 24, 1967 wirephoto captioned "Asks a captive" shows soldiers of the U.S. 25th Infantry Division interrogating a captured Viet Cong soldier before continuing a village sweep northwest of Saigon. The two Korea images show staged Communist prisoner camp scenarios: one image by Malcolm Barr shows American soldiers, three dressed in North Korean army uniforms, conducting an "interrogation" at a U.S. Army simulated Communist prisoner of war camp; the other, captioned "Pointed question," shows Sp/4 Ralph Kreis receiving rough treatment from Korean "guards" attached to the 2nd Infantry Division during a five hour Code of Conduct course.

The group belongs to the period when the U.S. military carried Korean War captivity lessons into the Vietnam era while fighting a counterinsurgency in which prisoners, detainees, suspected guerrillas, and civilian villagers became sources of tactical information. The Vietnam photographs show prisoner questioning at the edge of combat operations with captions placing each scene near Saigon and linking interrogation to sweeps, firefights, suspected Viet Cong activity, and U.S. or South Vietnamese field units. The U.S. Code of Conduct photographs show the counterpart of American soldiers rehearsing captivity under staged Communist authority, using Korean War imagery to prepare men for the coercive questioning and ideological pressure they might face in later Cold War conflicts. Press stamps, caption slips, crop marks, editorial notations, toning, surface wear, adhesive residue, and handling creases; images remain clean and clear. Overall very good condition. A press record of how captivity, interrogation, and resistance training handled counterintelligence heralding from the red scare.

Item #23551

Price: $850.00